OPERATION FALCON Or Operation Horsefeathers ?

04/15/05 | vanity

[genefromjersey]

-OPERATION FALCON-

(Or Operation Horsefeathers ?)

A massive roundup of fugitives has been carried on over the past few days, on a nationwide scale.Newscasters tell us - breathlessly-10,000 fugitives have been "taken off the streets" !! Really ?

Such fugitive roundups are nothing new. I was involved in them (peripherally) once or twice a year for at least 5 years before I retired.They work like this:

Every police department in the nation has a backlog of fugitive warrants. Most are for failure to appear minor offenses,but a hefty percentage involve non-appearance on more serious matters.

Periodically, the US Marshal's Service will form a task force in one or more areas, made up of federal,state,county,and local law enforcement people,and after reviewing and prioritizing the files,will go out and round up as many "felony fugitives" as possible...AND will garner as much publicity as possible.

What happens NEXT doesn't make the headlines.

The same pool of judges that released these fugitives on bail in the first place will now review their bail status - (assuming they are actually bailable; ie: haven't been sentenced yet.)

The judges MAY require "new bail";but,in most cases, the fugitive will be given a new court date,and released on pre-existing bail,with no forfeiture.A surprising percentage will be released on personal recognizance , or on posting 10% of the required bail.

In other words,a high percentage of those fugitives "taken off the streets" will be BACK on the streets by the time the Marshals reach their next roundup area.

Operation Falcon cost a small fortune,but,if it's anything like its predecessors,it generated a lot of "horsefathers"...and the public got the bird.

[Dilbert56]

I thought the cost of the operation was annouced as between half a million and a million dollars, mostly in overtime for local law enforcement. That's probably cheaper that two or three trials.